


You Are My Gift

by gr8escap



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, BuckyNat Secret Santa, F/M, Memories, Stakeout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr8escap/pseuds/gr8escap
Summary: Memories of winters gone by and Christmases lost to the whims and will of Hydra surface when Bucky finds himself alone on a cold stakeout in the dark. He spends much of the time on comms with his partner across the alley, working on a gift for Natasha, whittling a replacement for one he'd given her long ago.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34
Collections: BuckyNat Secret Santa 2019





	You Are My Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remy71923](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remy71923/gifts).



**_Now_ **

He volunteered for this stakeout, even though he was qualified for more, but he wasn’t sure anybody was ready for his being responsible for more. Even if Steve trusted him and Sam had started to show a chink in his own armor, Bucky didn’t know if he was deserving.

Staking out was well within his abilities, so why was he so fidgety? He looked out over the historic city from his rooftop campsite. A blanket of azure and periwinkle clouds hovered above the horizon which glowed with a thin fuchsia line. The narrow streets were alight with golden glow from street lamps and windows. As winters go, this one was quite pleasant. He’d been holed up in darker, colder, more depressing surveillance points. With a lot more cognizance for the task. Which came with a lot less freedom and free will.

Using skills honed as somebody else’s puppet required implementing a new skill set with a free mind. The upgrade patch was his own consciousness and attention, which seemed to be wandering. He felt alert, yet he noticed his thoughts drifting and his hands itched for something to occupy them. He tapped his fingers over the knife on his thigh before withdrawing his hand. He turned his attention from the target’s window — currently revealing a shadowed, empty room — to the construction materials that could act as his cover if he was to be spotted. The renovations to the building were real, his partner had assured him. That was convenient.

There were times he’d used a knife to create things. Carving toys for his little sister while sitting out on the stoop in the spring breeze, a back scratcher for his mother while on a break from work. A fragile ballerina for — for her.

* * *

_**Then** _

Frigid air whistled through the cracks in the window seals. His body could take extremes, he was used to the cold. It helped him stay alert, kept him ready to fight. He pushed down he underlying certainty that this was a lie. That he belonged somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint. He shaved another chunk from the piece of wood he’d picked up while he waited for the next trainee. She had promise, everybody said as much, but he knew it from working with her. She was a futurist, a maverick, at least when they were together. She followed the rules set before her when she was under guard, but alone, they found a measure of freedom. She taught him how to laugh again. It was Christmas Eve and he wanted to give her something special. The figure was emerging from the wood block with ease, the graceful lines finding their freedom with each scrape of the knife. A freedom he could only dream of, he was creating for her.

* * *

_**Now** _

Bucky leaned toward the construction materials closest to him, stretching his arm until his fingers could just reach a scrap block of a workable size. With the tips of his fingers, he walked the block toward him, to within grasping distance. With the scrap in hand, he felt along the woodgrain for flaws. What was going to be released from this castoff?

“Barnes, you still there?”

He nearly forgot the comms. He hadn’t had anything to report and his partner had been silent for as long. He should have checked in before now. Where was his head?

“Affirmative.”

“Well?”

Never one to mince words. He appreciated that about his partner. He also appreciated that they were able to do this from separate vantage points. He wasn’t sure what to make of the assignment. Above her pay grade. That would be his assessment. Would be and had always been.

“Goose-egg. Nothing going on and it’s getting cold and it’s dark.”

“You’ve seen colder and darker.”

He didn’t have to hide his smile, she was across the way and he was hidden. “I don’t have to any more. I can complain about it too, it’s my right and I’ve earned it.”

There was nothing over comms for a bit, he decided to attempt instigating a conversation. “What’s the coldest you can remember, Agent?”

“Siberia. Obviously.” Her smile came through comms as clear as music over radio.

“I’ve been there.”

“I know,” She said quietly. Since the dip in volume didn’t correlate with a need to be quiet he judged her tone to be sympathetic.

“Of course.” His words lingered in his ears filling in the awkward silence. He could have stayed quiet, of course she’d know. She had his file. She was, in all facets, his boss in this mission, she’d know all of his history. He watched his breath cloud between him and the scrap of wood that was shaping up to be something else as strips and chunks fell away at the whim of his blade.

“I was in training, it was Christmas Eve then too.”

They both went quiet as lights went on across the way. Tension spiraled down his spine before easing upon realization the lights belonged to the apartment next door to their target. They’d watch that window for a while, not in a voyeuristic manner. Well, this was a voyeuristic line of work, but the peeping was simply to see if their target was trying to trip them up. It was also very quiet with the exception of sporadic street level sounds, the distant sound of church bells, and the constant symphony of blade upon wood.

“There’s nothing there,” she proclaimed finally. A decision he agreed with completely.

“I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything here at all,” Bucky said. He ran his thumb along the lines of the wood, unable to exactly see what he was creating due to the low light in his nest.

“Could be just you and me, hope you brought your knitting.”

He laughed quietly, the short huff of air from his nose was near imperceptible. “What about you? Tell me about Christmas Eve in Siberia.”

“It was cold and dark.”

“I thought we’d established that,” Bucky countered. “C’mon, I want a story.”

“You didn’t sign up for a story. How about you? Tell me about you.”

“What don’t you already know?” He hoped his focus on the project in his hands kept his tone level. It was getting harder to treat these conversations casually. He remembered her. He remembered Christmas Eve in Siberia. She was talking about them but did she realize? Was it just a night in the cold? Was it the same night? There had been many Christmas Eve nights before theirs and after.

He started to wish she wouldn’t answer him. He didn’t want to hear the litany of information the governments had compiled on him. He’d stood in front of a group of suited political assembly and answered as many as they’d thrown at him. He’d been put on a very short leash for a very long deliberation session before being exonerated.

“How are you finding your new situation? Is it improving?”

That, he didn’t expect. He sat silently, scraping his thumb across the sharp edge of his blade. Maybe she thought he’d fallen asleep. Maybe she knew he was at a loss for words. Time passed, he returned to his whittling. He kept watch across the way halfheartedly expecting a change. The only change he noted was the dwindling weight of the block of wood he was probably just shredding and the changing light of the sky. His silence just grew around him, the time he’d taken to consider her question ballooned until he felt awkward making any comment that wasn’t mission related. And none of those came to mind either.

Instead he thought about the Christmas Eve he’d hoped she was referring to.

* * *

_**Then** _

She came into the ballroom that was their practice space. He didn’t hear her or smell her. Invisibility relied on all of the senses, not just the eyes. He did feel her presence though. He looked up before she’d crossed the polished wood floor. Her face lit up when their eyes caught and she stopped on her mark waiting for his instruction. He looked around, hyper aware that their situation was precarious. He set his tissue wrapped surprise at the far end of the mantle and sheathed his knife before striding across the space to square up with his student. Their cheeks bloomed with color, a result of the combination of bitter chill and fulfillment of the anticipation each had harbored since their last session.

Wordlessly, they engaged in the exercises with occasional grunts and breathing through clenched teeth the only sounds, frequently punctuated by a thump when one threw the other over, she was gaining on him, able to take him down legitimately more and more often. After the fifth thigh choke had him on the ground, she swung around and straddled his hips. Bearing a smile — tender and beautiful instead of feral — she leaned forward and placed a kiss on his lips. It was quick contact and then she sprang away from him, offering a hand up. Lamenting the loss of contact, he reached out for her. She tugged him across the floor to the fireplace, where a pittance of a fire sputtered. He added wood, more than their rations combined, and watched her dance across the hearth, hovering near the tiny paper bundle.

The silence between them and the crackling flames was comforting. She’d confessed she didn’t like that they weren’t allowed names. She hadn’t decided what they should call one another yet, and so the silence reined until they could settle near the fire.

He reached around her, taking up the parcel in his prosthetic hand. With the flesh of his right hand, he brushed her glistening shoulder, gliding his fingers over her muscled arm before taking her small hand in his. She linked fingers with him and gave a squeeze. They sat on the ornate tile hearth hunkering as close as they dared in order to keep warm while trying to remain unseen.

“It’s Christmas Eve out there,” She said to him in Russian.

“Then what is it in here?” He returned in the same language.

She laughed softly, lyrically, telling him the same thing as always, “Your accent delights me.”

“I don’t have an accent,” he argued.

“You do. It’s not Russian even if your words are.”

“Keep teasing me, I won’t give you your gift.”

“Milii moi, I have no gift for you.”

“Nonsense, you are my gift.”

“Not the same,” she muttered, leaning against him, looking into the flames.

“Bring me extra pirozhki next time, that will be enough.” He placed the small package in her hands. “It’s nothing much, but it’s from the heart, lyubov moya.”

* * *

**_Now_ **

A thick smack against his boot turned his attention and his gaze to his left and upward. The sky was a dancing golden yellow and mango framed by a ring of azure and white altocumulus clouds. These formed a halo around his partner’s silhouette. She was holding out a cup wrapped with a paper insulator. “Wakey Wakey.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” It was true. He had even been eying the window across the way, still a bust.

She crouched in front of him, eyes fixed on the wooden figurine in his hand. He looked down at his hands, surveying his work. It was a decent rendition of a lithe dancer in arabesque pose. Unable to make eye contact, he dropped his gaze from the figure and noticed a blanket of wood chips across his legs.

“You’re going to put this in your report, aren’t you?”

“You remember?” The fingers of her free hand hovered close to the outstretched arm of the dancer. “You remember — that? Us?”

“I remember Christmas Eve in front of a fire. A lovely girl in my arms after she soundly beat me three times.”

“Five. It was no less than five.” She sank to her knees in front of him, crunching bits of wood shavings. A barely perceptible wince suggested she had knelt on a chunk as well.

“If that’s coffee and if it’s for me, I’ll concede to four.”

“It’s for you, if this is for me.” She looked shocked to have said it aloud.

He resisted the urge to wink when he smiled at her.

“But it was five,” She insisted.

They traded gifts, she apologized for not having more.

“Give me hope for us, Tasha.” He’d never had her name, never said it aloud, even though he’d heard it in conversations all of the time recently. What possessed him to shorten it, he didn’t know.

“There is hope,” she said. Her growing smile warmed him more than the cup in his hand. “James.”

It was an even better feeling, a better gift, hearing her say his name for the first time.

**Author's Note:**

>  _My BuckyNat Secret Santa gift for **Remy71923** based on the prompts:_ On Christmas post-Endgame (canon), Bucky remembers his past with Natasha, specifically one Christmas they managed to spend together during their days in the Red Room. _with a pinch of:_ Bucky and Natasha spend a Christmas together even after Natasha lost her memories of him (post-Black Widow Hunt comic series)
> 
> I visualized something along the lines of Plovdiv, Bulgaria for their current position, based on some good ole google image searches for building and street features I desired, once I settled on that as my model, I took advantage of the locale for images sunsets and sunrises as well. I am not as well traveled as these lovebirds, the internet, so helpful.


End file.
